This invention relates to a "Karaoke" sing-along method and system. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and system using acoustical prompting rather than visual prompting.
2. Description of Related Art
"Karaoke" is the name given for the activity wherein a person sings and/or performs a "vocal" along with prerecorded music that is being played. "Karaoke" literally means "false orchestra" in the Japanese language. Karaoke is also the Japanese trade word applied to "sing-along" products, and is universally used to describe singing along with prerecorded music for enjoyment or practice.
When performing Karaoke, participants must either know the lyrics by memory or read the lyrics from a song sheet or electronic prompter. Current visual prompting methods are solely dependent upon the participant's ability to read, and then in turn efficiently synchronize and sing the words in a melodic, artistic, and timely manner with the ongoing musical background track.
Although visual prompting is the universal standard, and continues to be very popular in the Eastern and Oriental cultures, the visual prompting technique imposes restrictive, awkward and even prohibitive requirements on the Karaoke participant. These impositions greatly degrade the potential performance necessary for faithful reproduction of a Western world pop music performance. Should a participant wish to emulate a particular rendition, they must not only emulate the vocal performance, but also the visual aspects of the participant's movements. The visual prompting method is severely restrictive with respect to certain subtleties of performance such as phrasing, expression, styling and bodily movement.
As used herein: a "song" means "music", plus "vocal", plus sometimes there is a "choral background". "Music" is orchestral portions. "Vocal" is intended to mean the lyrics being sung by the lead vocalist. "Choral background" is intended to mean choral accompaniment being presented along with the "music". Thus, "music" as used herein may include "choral background". "Vocal line" means a segment (portion) of the vocal as distinct from the entire vocal.
Karaoke is performed for enjoyment, personal challenge, competition, and practice. Participants seek to demonstrate artistic creativity and to copy renditions made popular by familiar or famous vocalists. Popular music without a vocal is usually played. A Karaoke participant then picks up a microphone and sings the vocal along with the music. The participant's voice is broadcast to a listening audience by the same loudspeaker equipment through which the music is played. The participant's vocal rendition plus the music can be recorded as a complete song which can be played later. For those who like to sing, Karaoke is fun. It is also a challenge for all forms of singing and performing competitions. Most importantly, though, Karaoke is a method of practice that is enjoyable, affordable, and can even be performed alone.
Prompting methods for a Karaoke participant normally involve visual techniques. The lyrics may be presented from a video monitor, a teleprompter, or from written music. These present methods require that the Karaoke participant continuously read the words, thereby restricting the participant from full artistic expression, because their eyes must remain focused on the visual prompts. These visual prompting methods for presenting written lyrics do not effectively convey to the Karaoke participant(s) any indication of the creative vocalizing artistry originally employed by a renowned vocalist who may have made famous that particular song.
Various prior art devices have been developed to convey audio information to a user in a useful manner. U.S. Pat. No. 4,353,841 to Meeder, for example, teaches a system in which two tracks have staggered prerecorded sections, and each track has associated therewith respective continuous recordings of background sounds.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,954 to Yamamoto discusses staggering one track relative to another track. The information on one track is discussed as being questions, while another track has answers to the questions. The answers and questions are staggered in time relative to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,354,841 to Meeder discusses a tape having tracks respectively dedicated to background music, first phrases, and second phrases associated with the first phrases. The phrases are staggered relative to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,844 to Snodgrass suggests a tape format in which the tape can be played nearly continuously, with the exception of a single stereo channel change.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,891 to Snodgrass teaches a system in which four consecutive segments of information are recorded on each respective channel. The first segment is recorded in the first stereo channel of one direction, the second segment is recorded in the first stereo channel of the reverse direction, this third segment is recorded in the second stereo channel of the one direction, and the fourth segment is recorded in the second stereo channel of the reverse direction. This allows the user to consecutively play all four segments while only having to change the stereo channel selection once.